What does counselling do? How can it help me?
There are almost as many answers to this question as there are people who seek counselling. In addition, depending upon the counsellor in question and their philosophical leanings, you will also likely get a different answer.
How then, is it possible to know exactly what it is that a client can expect to achieve, and what kind of change might they experience? For me the answer is both simple, and somewhat complex at the same time but over these next few hundred words I will try to explain a career’s worth of learning.
We all have ideas about the world in which we live. Some of these ideas are solid, fixed thought patterns and we call these facts. “The sun rises in the East and sets in the West”, “What goes up, must come down” are simple and clear examples of these fixed ideas/beliefs and are shared by the majority of the human race.
Other ideas/beliefs that we hold however are not always shared by everybody. “I am a fantastic singer” is one such belief that is held by many an X-Factor contestant and as we have all seen (to our regular amusement) often does not turn out to be true.
Sometimes the strong feelings and beliefs that have taken on board and “just know to be true” are not as accurate as we think they are. Some of these beliefs are not doing us any favours and despite an intellectual understanding of this, these ideas can be hard to shake. Just as often, we find ourselves struggling to be happy in life and not really understanding why, more often than not in this situation it turns out that there are some old belief systems operating in the background of our minds that we are not aware of and these are having a larger influence on our lives than we realised
“I have to be a good girl in order to be loved”, “There is no such thing as second place, only losers”, or “If my house and children are not spotless, it means I’m a bad mother” are but a few examples of the kind of ideas I’m talking about.
Counselling, above all, provides the quiet time, intelligent and compassionate space to sift through some of these old beliefs. In the safe environment of the counselling room, you are given the opportunity to weigh up and consider which of these ideas you genuinely hold as true, important & valid, and which are outdated, untrue and unhelpful.
It is the shedding of these old shackles that allows us to find who we truly are – now, as adults and valid people in our own right. Importantly, the things we choose to hold on to as ourselves as we finish counselling are those things of our own choosing, not of the counsellor’s.
If you would like more information about counselling and how this might be helpful in your life, please feel free to telephone on 01279 834467 for a confidential, no obligation conversation prior to booking an appointment.
